Roundback Slugs Lat. “Arionidae“
Arionidae, common name the “roundback slugs” or “round back slugs” are a taxonomic family of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Arionoidea.
Hierarchy
Distribution
The distribution of this family of slugs includes Nearctic, Palearctic and Oriental regions.
Anatomy
Unlike some slugs, European Arionidae have no keel on the back. The caudal mucous pit is above the tip of the tail. The respiratory pore (pneumostome) is in front of the midpoint of the mantle. The body length is up to 250 mm. The mantle covers only a part of the body and lies in the anterior part. The jaw is odontognathic, which means it is transversally ribbed. Radular teeth include: central tricuspid, lateral bi- or tricuspid, marginal bicuspid, all having broad bases. Teeth are often accreted. The digestive system forms 2 loops. The heart, in relation to body axis, is titled to the left. The kidney is circular (surrounding aorta). Cephalic retractors tend to divide into separate branches attached independently to the posterior part of pallial complex. The shell is strongly reduced in places, most often completely buried in the mantle, usually of loose crystals or plate-like. Genitalia: the penis is present only in some species, epiphallus is present in nearly all of them. Male copulatory organs are generally reduced, their role being taken over by a well-developed atrium and the epiphallus that produces spermatophores. In this family, the number of haploid chromosomes lies between 21 and 30 (according to the values in this table).
Genera
Family Arionidae has no subfamilies according to the taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005. The type genus of the family is Arion Férussac, 1819 Genera within the family Arionidae include:
Anadenulus Cockerell, 1890 Arion Férussac, 1819 Ariunculus Lessona, 1881 Carinacauda Leonard, Chichester, Richart & Young, 2011 Geomalacus Allman, 1843 Gliabates Webb, 1959 Hesperarion Simroth, 1891 Letourneuxia Bourguignat, 1866 Magnipelta Pilsbry, 1953 Securicauda Leonard, Chichester, Richart & Young, 2011 Udosarx Webb, 1959 Zacoleus Pilsbry, 1903
Parasites
The parasites of the Arionidae slugs include the Sciomyzidae.
References
This article incorporates public domain text from the reference.
External links
Round back slugs (Arionidae) on weichtiere.at.
Ancestry Graph
Further Information
„Roundback Slugs“ on wikipedia.org
„Roundback Slugs“ on iNaturalist.org
Copyright

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Arionidae the free encyclopedia Wikipedia which is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License). On Wikipedia a list of authors is available.
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